6/16/1959 - A la the unsolved mysteries of who killed director William Desmond Taylor in 1922, what happened to movie producer Thomas H. Ince aboard William Randolph Heart's yacht, "Oneida," in 1924 what caused the death of comedian Thelma Todd in 1935, and who was the monster that slaughtered the ingenue known as "The Black Dahlia" (actress Elizabeth Short) in 1947, a new real-life mystery comes to Hollywood, California as the summer of 1959 begins. Plunging an entire generation of young American boys into months of traumatizing depression, 45-year-old actor George Keefer Brewer, better known to the world as thespian George Reeves, the man starring on TV as Superman/Clark Kent, leaves a small gathering of friends partying downstairs at his Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles, California, enters his upstairs bedroom, and minutes later is dead from a .30-caliber Luger pistol bullet to the head.
Reeves
Reeves is born Brewer in Woodstock, Iowa on January 5, 1914 to Donald Carl Brewer (the propritier of a small town drug store) and Helen Lescher. When his parents separate, he lives with his mother and her family first in Galesburg, Illinois, and then, in Pasadena, California. He leaves the Brewer name behind when his mother remarries Frank Joseph Bessolo (a second generation Italian-American whose family owns a vineyard in northern California) and in 1927, her new partner adopts George as his own son (the marriage lasts 15 years before Helen goes hunting some new happy in 1940 and tells her son his step-father is gone not because he left the relationship, but because he committed suicide). Standing 6'2" tall and weighing 195 pounds, a Golden Gloves fighter with a 31-0 record by the time he is 20 (when his nose is broken for the ninth time he decides to hang up his gloves), Reeves begins acting in high school, and takes his passion for the arts forward when he attends Pasadena Junior College (he is also a member of the acapella choir and plays guitar). Reeves is "discovered" by the Hollywood talent scouts of producer David O. Selznick while studying his craft as a member of the nearby prestigious Pasadena Playhouse (he also meets his first wife there, Ellanora Needles, the granddaughter of circus mogul, John Franklin Robinson ... the marriage will last ten years) for four years, beginning in 1935 when he is 21-years-old. Paydirt struck at the very start, his first role on camera is as one of the red-haired Tarleton twins, Stuart, that is trying to score a date with Scarlett O'Hara at the beginning of the Best Picture of 1939, Margaret Mitchell's Oscar winning "Gone With the Wind." Returning to the Pasadena Playhouse after the filming of his part is completed, Reeves wins the lead role in the Playhouse's production of "Pancho," a part which in turn leads to the actor being signed to a contract with Warner Brothers Studio. At Warner's he appears in a handful of major releases for the studio (there are three James Cagney movies, "Torrid Zone," "The Fighting 69th," and The Strawberry Blonde") but mostly is seen in two-reel short subjects and B-picture films (two of which also feature the future President of the United States, Ronald Reagan). Believing the actor does not have "star" potential or that he is being cast properly, by mutual agreement Reeves is let out of his Warners' contract, and soon signs on with Twentieth Century-Fox, but has little luck there either. Inspired by his role as the wounded love interest of nurse Claudette Colbert in Paramount Pictures' "So Proudly We Hail!," Reeves puts his acting career on hold and joins the U.S. Army in 1943, where he is assigned to Special Theatrical Unit U.S. Army Air Corps and spends World War II acting in the service's Broadway show, "Winged Victory" (followed by appearing in the show's national tour and then replaying his role in the movie version) and making training shorts (in one, he is directed by John Ford and teaches the evils of getting syphilis in "Sex Hygiene").
Wooing Scarlett
Returning to Hollywood in 1946, Reeves is frustrated by the movie offers he receives, and is even more discouraged at the films that finally make it on to celluloid (like playing a bush pilot that goes mad in "Jungle Goddess," or trying to kill Johnny Weissmuller's Jungle Jim as the crazed photographer, Bruce Edwards, in the first of the sixteen Jim movies). During this period of time, during production of the serial, "The Adventures of Sir Galahad" (with Reeves as the legendary Arthurian knight) to make ends meet, Reeves also holds down a job digging cesspools. Luck finally his, in 1951 the starring role Reeves takes in the B-movie, "Superman and the Mole Men," morphs into the recurring roles of Clark Kent and Superman on the TV show (13 episodes filmed in 13 weeks), "The Adventures of Superman." An "instant" celebrity by 1952, Reeves will star for six seasons in all 104 episodes of the show making over $5,000 a week during production (roughly $48,000 a week in 2020 money). And because of the part, he will get a second chance at handling A-list roles in major Hollywood productions like Fritz Lang's "Rancho Notorious" as the outlaw Wilson opposite Marlene Dietrich and Arthur Kennedy, or as Sergeant Maylon Stark in Fred Zinnemann's Oscar winner of 1953, "From Here to Eternity" (the type-casting though becomes cement when audiences yell, "There's Superman!" when Reeves appears on screen as a member of Burt Lancaster's Army boxing team).
As The Outlaw Wilson
Opposite Burt Lancaster In "From Here to Eternity"
Finally a star, Reeves quickly discovers that his fame comes at a price, its cost being he must continue to be Superman, both on camera and off ... a task he has grown exceptionally weary of enduring at 45-years-of-age. Thinking his talents are being wasted, he puts together an adventure TV series to be shot in Hawaii called Port of Entry, but financial backing can't be found, and invisible money men is also the problem when Reeves tries to put into production a low-budget science fiction movie (with himself as director) written by a friend from his Pasadena Playhouse days. Turned down for roles, told no when pitching projects, desperate for work, in 1959 Reeves painfully agrees to bring back Superman for another season of twenty-six episodes, start up his Superman national tour again in July (and there are plans to take the show to Australia), and star in a feature movie release entitled. "Superman and the Secret Planet" (and there are plans for a exhibition boxing match to be shown on national TV between Reeves and light-heavyweight world champion, Archie Moore). And while these "struggles" are plaguing his artistic career, Reeves also begins having troubles in his personal life. Divorced from his first wife, actress Elladora Needles, in 1941, as the decade of the 40s comes to an end, Reeves finds himself the boy-toy in a 10-year relationship with Toni Lanier Mannix (his junior by over eight years), a former Ziegfeld Follies showgirl with a legendary sexual appetite that is married to MGM Studios trouble-shooter executive, Eddie "The Bulldog" Mannix (the couple have an open marriage and Toni and George often are accompanied on dates by Eddie and his latest Hollywood mistress). Lover pampering by way of a fancy car, a lush bank account, a gold watch gift (inscribed with the words, "Mad About The Boy"), silken clothing, romantic vacations, posh furniture, and a home in the tony Benedict Canyon region of Los Angeles (some of the region's residents have included Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Rock Hudson, and Buster Keaton), in 1958, Reeves finally tires of the diamond encrusted leash Mannix has around his neck (planning on marrying Reeves when her ailing husband dies, she is irate when she gets the news that she has been dumped for a younger woman and threatens to out the actor to the world as a homosexual and communist), and the actor begins seeing a 38-year-old New York party girl named Leonore Lemmon, a spoiled Vanderbilt family beauty known for her drinking and temper (the pair plan to marry on June 19th and honeymoon in Tijuana, but the nuptials never take place).
Needles
Reeves, Mannix And Friend
Lemmon
Setting the stage for the death that is to come, in the days and months leading up to June, Reeves begins getting death threats, when he answers the phone sometimes there is only sinister breathing coming out of his receiver, his dog is kidnapped and murdered, Toni Mannix continues her habit of calling Reeves up to 20 times a day pleading for the pair to get back together, a young boy at a publicity appearance asks if can shoot Reeves with the real gun he has brought to the festivities, a mysterious black truck tries to push Reeves off the road one evening, his vehicle is in a major accident on the freeway with two trucks, and the actor almost kills himself running into a tree when his brakes fail for lack of having any stopping fluid in the vehicle's system. On Monday, June 15, 1959, Reeves and Lemmon leave Reeves' abode and have dinner and take in the matches of a local wrestling promotion. Heavily drinking throughout the day, the couple manage to have several loud arguments which people notice. Returning to Benedict Canyon at around 11:00 in the evening, where they have left houseguest Robert Condon behind to work on his autobiography of boxing champion Archie Moore. Using the upcoming nuptials of Reeves and Lemmon as an excuse for celebrating, there is more drinking by the trio before Reeves finally decides to go upstairs to his bedroom. But instead of ending, the small downstairs party expands when Condon's girlfriend, Carol Von Ronkel, and neighbor William Bliss show up and start drinking with Condon and Lemmon. Unable to sleep with all the racket being made downstairs, at around 12:30, Reeves accosts the partiers and yells at them for the late hour and noise, then returns to his room, but not before joining everyone for one more drink (at the autopsy, the actor will by found to have a .27 blood alcohol level and he is taking medication for all the hurts he has taken doing many of his own stunts). Laughing at her lover's anger, Lemmon suddenly shouts, "He'll probably go up to his room and shoot himself. Then, as the foursome hear a bedroom drawer opening through the thin floor, she then adds, "Oh, no! He's getting his gun out now and he's going to shoot himself!" (the actor is notorious for playing with his guns and simulating games of Russian Roulette). A second later, there is the loud bang of a pistol from upstairs, and when Bliss ascends the stairs to investigate the sound, he finds a naked Reeves, face up on his bed, his feet on the floor, comatose, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to his right temple (about an inch above his ear), a luger pistol at his feet. Hammered, it takes the four living occupants of the house 45 minutes to sober up enough to call the authorities ... or to get their stories straight.
Reeves Home
Seemingly a slam dunk case of suicide, the death soon becomes mysterious when the authorities start collecting and then examining evidence in the death of Reeves. Besides the strangeness of Lemmon's comments moments before the gunshot sounds or the length of time it takes for the death to be reported, there is the German pistol (previously only used to fire blanks), which is totally devoid of fingerprints, there are bruises on Reeves body suggesting he had recently been in a fight, negating normal ballistics, the ejected death round casing is somehow under Reeves' body, the angle of the wound to Reeves' head doesn't coincide with the actor inflicting it on himself based on the location of the kill slug the police find in the ceiling, the corpse has no gunpowder residual on it, there is no suicide note, the police find two other fresh bullet holes in the upstairs bedroom that had come from the same gun, and someone enters into the home 24 hours after the killing, breaking the yellow crime scene tape at the front door and upstairs bedroom (protocol is also broken when the body is washed off, removing any potential clues, by the city coroner). Quickly deemed a suicide (the investigation by authorities barely lasts a week), a host of the actor's friends (among them are the cast and crew of Superman, actors Alan Ladd, Gig Young, Rory Calhoun, Burt Lancaster, and Frank Sinatra, and family that includes Reeves' mother, who out of her own pocket, pays celebrity lawyer Jerry Giesler to do a second investigation) never believe Reeves killed himself (showing her true colors, when Lemmon discovers that most of the actor's assets, $71,000, have been willed to Toni Mannix, with the actor's mother also being remembered, she takes $4,000 in traveler's checks from the house supposedly meant for the couple's honeymoon, gets on a train is off to New York within 48 hours of Reeves' death, and is never seen in Los Angeles again ... this on top of rumors that she is upstairs when the shot is fired and tells the other three guests to say she was downstairs with them when the police arrive.).
Death Certificate
Autopsy
Casket George
At his funeral in July, the Reverend R. Parker Jones of the St. Albans Episcopal Church officiates. Among those attending the ceremony are Noel Neill (the actress portraying Lois Lane in the TV series), comedian Don DeFore, actor Alan Ladd, actor Gig Young, and professional wrestler and stunt man Gene LeBell. Believing her son has been murdered and his body might be required to prosecute the killer, his mother (she will have a small shrine honoring George in her home for the rest of her life) holds Reeves' funeral service at the Wayside Chapel of the Gates Funeral Home in Los Angeles, has the body moved to the Woodlawn Mausoleum in Santa Monica, then has her son shipped back to Cincinnati for burial in the local family crypt, but when officials deny the request citing a lack of space, George is returned to California where he is finally cremated. His mortal remains in the form of ashes in an urn now reside (beside those of his mother) at the Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California. Witnesses and evidence now gone, or locked testimony locked in as is, George Reeves death officially remains listed as a suicide, but no can say for sure that is what happened and for those that don't believe in that finding, the death is considered a murder at the hands of an irate Lemmon, responding to Reeves calling off their marriage, the work of killers hired by an enraged Toni Mannix (there will be rumors that on her deathbed, Mannix will confess to arranging the killing), the death is the result of Eddie Mannix seeking revenge for his jilted wife (it is said that Mannix has the Luger blank replaced by a live round that he knows George will eventually shoot at himself pretending to play Russian Roulette) ... or perhaps Reeves was so upset at the way his life was going, in a moment of weakness he did take his life. Myself, I think Lemmon did it (knowing she was banned from the Stork Club for getting in a fist fight certainly contributed to my choice), firing the two bullets as warning shots at Reeves before putting a round in his head when he refused a last time to have anything further to do with her, then shut up her friends with threats to kill them too if they told the Beverly Hills cops the truth ... but of course, who knows.
Dead George
Final Rest
Not faster than a speeding bullet, nor more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound ... actor George Reeves dies a mysterious death worthy of an Edgar Allen Poe on this day in 1959.
Super & Lucy
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